May Day has its early origins in the United States, in the late 19th century, with a pathbreaking and historical strike for the eight-hour day. International Workers’ Day commemorates the 1886 Haymarket affair in Chicago. On May 1, 1886, Chicago unionists, reformers, socialists, anarchists, and ordinary workers convened as part of a long-term organizing campaign to make Chicago the center of the national movement for an eight-hour day.

During this extended period of struggle, on the evening of May 4, 1886, Chicago police attempted to disperse a peaceful assembly of workers in Haymarket Square when an unidentified assailant threw a bomb. The police reacted by firing on the workers, killing a number of protestors. Organizers of the demonstration were charged with murder — but no evidence was ever found linking them to the bombing. Four of them – known as the “Haymarket Martyrs” were hanged the following year. 

In 1889, the first congress of the Second International Workingmen’s Association, meeting in Paris on the centennial of the French Revolution, called for international labor demonstrations on the 1890 anniversary of the Chicago protests. Then, in 1891, May Day was formally recognized as an annual event at the International’s Second Congress. In subsequent years, the working class in many countries sought to make May Day an official holiday, and their efforts largely succeeded. 

In the United States and Canada, however, the official holiday for workers is Labor Day in September. After the Haymarket Incident in Chicago, U.S. President Grover Cleveland “feared” that commemorating Labor Day on May 1 would become an opportunity to commemorate Haymarket and radical worker struggle. Thus, he pushed for U.S. Labor Day to be the first Monday in September.

In the United States, efforts to officially switch Labor Day back to the May 1 have been unsuccessful. However, a number of unions and locals — especially in urban areas with strong support for organized labor — have maintained a connection with labor traditions through their own unofficial observances on May 1.

Today, May 1, 2025, working people all over the world — including millions here in North America — will celebrate International Workers’ Day. As railroaders, we will celebrate the dignity of all workers, highlighting working conditions in our own industry. The widespread negative effects of Precision Schedule Railroading (PSR) are now well known to millions of Americans. Rails have been sounding the alarm for years, educating the media, politicians and the public about unsafe and irresponsible practices of Class One billionaires.

Rails continue to fight against the dangers of long and heavy trains, the relentless profit-centered attempts to implement one-person crews, the lack of proper investment in maintenance and inspection, and the flight of workers from the rail industry due to eroding working conditions.

Further, in April 2024, RWU adopted a resolution in support of UAW’s President Fain calling for common contract expiration dates across industries to coordinate to a May Day (May 1) 2028 expiration.

Railroad Workers United has put the safety, well being, job quality, and voices of working railroaders at the center of its organizing since 2008. We amplify their voices today and keep the spirit of working class resistance, rank & file democracy, and good troublemaking alive in the rail industry.

Check the links below for May Day resources and take part in local May Day activities in your area as we celebrate OUR day — International Workers’ Day.
 
Solidarity Forever,
Railroad Workers United

The post RWU Greetings for International Workers’ Day first appeared on Labor Today.

The objective of unification and the mobilization of active workers, retirees and pensioners, both in the public and private sectors, is the demand for a general increase in wages and pensions. It is the requirement that article 91 of the Constitution be complied with, said the trade unionist at a press conference.

In this sense, the spokesman explained that the demand is to stop the process of destroying wages and labor rights that this government is applying with its neo-liberal criminal policy, which is why he called on all sectors of the country to join the march called by the public sector and by the employees of private companies.

Will the united workers defeat the anti-worker and anti-popular policy of the authoritarian and legitimate government, which is condemning the Venezuelan working people to hunger and misery. Together we will win with powerful mobilizations this May 1, he detailed.

He reiterated that in Caracas this day of mobilization will take place in a rally and a march that will depart from Plaza Venezuela to Parque Carabobo in front of the headquarters of the Public Prosecutor’s Office. That day in May 1 from 9 a.m. to go out in combative unitary and class mobilization.

Originally published in Contrapunto.

The post VENEZUELA: Active and Retired Workers to Hold a March from Plaza Venezuela to the Public Prosecutor’s Office this May 1st first appeared on Labor Today.

This year’s May Day anniversary will go down in history as a bloody anniversary. Because while millions of workers around the world organize themselves, demand against the anti-people’s policies of the capital, its governments and the EU, our colleagues in Palestine will be burying the dozens of bodies murdered every day in the genocide that is carried out by Israel. Workers in every corner of the globe will not remain silent in the crime being committed. They will turn every May Day activity into a demonstration of solidarity with the struggling Palestinian people, and of condemnation of the murderous state of Israel and its imperialist allies who in one way or another support the massacre.

Similarly, the workers do not remain silent on every other crime committed against the peoples, for the profits of the imperialists and the monopolies. At a time when the planet is dripping blood in various places from military interventions, the international class-oriented trade union movement, organized and decisively, is fighting for peace. We say no to imperialist plans and military conflicts. The struggle for peace has a specific content. It means first and foremost a struggle for the dismantling of NATO and all military coalitions, a struggle to defend the right of every people to choose the path of their economic and social development without interventions, sanctions, blockades, and economic wars. Against the double-standards policy where international law ends up being in practice the law of the powerful ones.

The messages and demands of the Chicago pioneers of 1886 remain relevant today. The crisis of capitalism is generalized and deepens. Social inequalities are widening dramatically. Democratic freedoms and trade union rights, are under attack all over the world.

The high cost of living and inflation are brutally undermining workers’ and pensioners living standards. Τhe right to organize and collective bargaining and the sacred right to strike are under attack.

Individual contracts, privatizations, outsourcing, teleworking and “service leasing” are just some of the forms taken by this harsh neoliberal attack.

Major social achievements such as social security and public health care are being privatized while the authoritarian and arbitrary increase of the retirement age methodically continues.

It is obvious that the burden of the capitalist crisis, is being attempted once again to be put on the shoulders of the working people and the weak popular strata in general.

The workers all over the world do not passively accept the capitalist anti-grassroots, and anti-worker attacks. They refuse to pay the bill of the capitalist crisis. With militant struggles and mobilizations in all corners of the globe, they demand the satisfaction of their contemporary needs. The WFTU and its affiliates are, and will continue firmly being in the vanguard of this struggles!

In this year’s May Day celebrations and demonstrations, the Palestinian flag will wave proudly next to the WFTU’s and its affiliates’ flags. In a spirit of solidarity and internationalism, we firmly stand beside the people of the heroic Cuba, and the peoples who struggle against the murderous sanctions, interventions, imperialist aggression, blockades and economic wars.

On the occasion of May Day 2024, the WFTU calls the class and militant trade unions around the world to organize this year’s campaign and activities under the slogan:

AGAINST THEIR PROFITS, WE RISE UP FOR OUR LIVES!

More Massive and Militant

• For the workers’ contemporary needs, against the exploitation!
• For democratic and trade union freedoms!
• In solidarity with Palestine, against imperialist wars and interventions!

For the class-oriented Trade Union movement, for the workers who resist, who do not compromise with oppression, discrimination and exploitation, there is only one path of dignity: the path of the struggles!

The struggles that have taken place signal hope, show the enormous power of the organized working class, illuminate the path of perspective against capitalist exploitation.

The post WFTU 2024 May Day Declaration first appeared on Labor Today.

United the working people of Cyprus, this year we shall again commemorate Workers Day, the international day of struggle and solidarity of working people.

May Day remains a steadfast timeless milestone in the struggles of the working class all over the world.  A day of remembrance and honour for the pioneering heroes of the Chicago Uprising of 1886, whose sacrifice became a symbol of struggle for the international working class. A day to mark the struggles of the working class all over the world for peace, for work with rights, for a society free from the exploitation.

On this historic day we honour the pioneers of the workers movement of our homeland, Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots who, through fierce class struggles and in the spirit of internationalism and class solidarity, achieved fundamental gains for the working class of Cyprus.

Today, working people all over the world are suffering the consequences of the capitalist crisis.  Price hikes, expensiveness and inflation have further reduced working people’s living standards.  Millions of people are facing the risk of poverty and social exclusion due to the anti-social socio-economic policies imposed by the ruling political forces in the EU and elsewhere.

Capital and the political forces that support it are intensifying their attacks on trade union freedoms and rights won through ferocious struggles. Because of neoliberal policies, public goods such as education and health care are not universally accessible. The result of these policies is the widening of economic and social inequalities.

At the same time, the ongoing imperialist wars and interventions for the imposition of geostrategic interests are continuing, bringing misery and destruction, large waves of refugees and migrants. The war between Ukraine and Russia continues with dramatic consequences for both peoples.

Over the last six months humanity has been witnessing the targeted genocide and barbaric crimes being committed by the State of Israel, with the complicity of the USA and the European Union, against the Palestinian people. 

Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot workers stand on the side of the people of Palestine.   We join with all the working people of the world in denouncing the genocide and the Israeli occupation. We express our full support for the right of the Palestinian people to an independent Palestinian state. 

The escalation of tensions in the Middle East endangers world peace as the vicious circle of retaliation can lead to the generalisation of war. The Cypriot working people who for more than fifty years have been suffering the results of NATO’s imperialist plans condemn wars and foreign interventions and stand with the forces fighting for peace to prevail.

On this symbolic day for the international working class, with our Joint Declaration, we reiterate the message that we do not compromise with the division.  The continuing stagnation [on the Cyprus problem] and the absence of dialogue, combined with the creation of new fait accompli, are leading to the permanent partition of our country.

We call on the two leaders to make creative use of the presence of the UN Secretary General’s Special envoy on Cyprus, far from any actions that create tensions, so that the procedure of the talks can be resumed from the point where they had remained at Crans Montana, with the sole aim of resolving the Cyprus problem on the agreed basis. 

For a just and mutually acceptable solution to the Cyprus problem within the framework of a Bizonal, Bicommunal Federation, with political equality as defined in the resolutions of the UN, for a demilitarised and independent state, without “protectors” and “guardians”.

We will continue our struggle and joint actions with the sole aim of achieving peace and the reunification of our homeland.

In the current critical economic and social conditions, the solution of the Cyprus problem will give a new perspective and dynamic to the development and progress of Greek Cypriots, Turkish Cypriots, Armenians, Maronites and Latins.

With the solution of the Cyprus problem and the reunification of our country, we will be able to continue our common struggles in peace and security within the framework of a united economy, with a single system of labour relations and working conditions for all and with equal access to social rights.  Based on our common class struggles, we will be able to win more workers’ and social gains.

In the face of the attacks being waged by capital, confronting the voices of division and separation we strengthen the class solidarity, struggles and assertions of Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot workers.  We march together with the international class-based trade union movement within the ranks of the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) in the struggle for peace and social justice.

Long live International Workers Day!

The post Joint Declaration of the WFTU-affiliated Trade Unions of Cyprus on International Workers Day 2024 first appeared on Labor Today.

You can find the video here:
https://luel.us/laborschool/session-1-american-origins-of-may-day-its-current-celebrations/
https://youtu.be/fRPG_MhC_l0?si=ZWGHHtnKFEVB81Zm

You can find our YouTube channel here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCygRGR71D8Ri6r5i3jTMxlw

The post Harry Bridges School of Labor 2023 Session 1: The American Origins of May Day Recording Now Available first appeared on Labor Today.